E3 is over and nothing new in the Pokemon front

Well, Nintendo had its E3 Direct and only a brief introduction of a second gym in Pokemon Sword and Shield and the second Gym Leader, the water-type Leader Nessa and her Drednaw, which is Rock/Water... I guess they needed to have it be water as it's based on a snapping turtle, but Rock? That's asking for trouble with Grooky's Dynamaxed Grass attack. :p

They also had some Pokemon Sword/Shield gameplay in the Treehouse and the guy tried to fight a Level 26 Machoke with a Level 10 Scorbunny. *facepalm*

Anyways, there was also a lot of Super Mario Maker 2(which I pre-purchased, there goes my free money for June) and other nice stuff, including the 2020 3D remake of Seiken Densetsu 3... er, I mean Trials of Mana and a localization of the Seiken Densetsu collection of all three old games as the Collection of Mana, which I also bought. They actually localized Seiken Desetsu 3 and it's cool. ;)

Am I going to buy Pokemon Sword? Yeah. Why not the dual pack? I only have one Switch and no point in buying a physical release of both games. I'm past the point where I can buy both versions and trade between them. *sigh*

My thoughts on Pokemon Sword and Shield

So I know it's been, what, two years since I posted here? I was all ready to give up on Pokemon...



AND THEN THIS HAPPENED.

Yep, Pokemon is coming to Nintendo new console, the Nintendo Switch, and just recently the Pokemon direct hit(which I missed because I am a late bloomer, thank God for YouTube!) and...

Well, let's just say my last post was very critical about Pokemon Sun and Moon and their Festival Plaza and global missions...
 

They've redeemed themselves in my eyes with Generation 8. ^_^

(I do not own the copied pictures.)

Let's get to the basics. First, what I like about the new stuff Generation 8 brings to the fold:

1. We get another female professor! True, Professor Magnolia looks one foot in the grave, but most of the professors weren't spring chickens either(Rowan and Oak) and the most popular Professor Oak also had a grandkid who was your rival in Blue.
2. Pokemon finally takes a page from Legend of Zelda and goes open world. We saw the demise of HM slaves with Sun and Moon(which will probably remain because of the new Blackwi-- I mean, raven Pokemon being a taxi service now) and now we see the brutal murder of linear routes. Of course, that means speedruns of this game will be VERY short if you can just easily avoid trainers now. (Probably not, but we can dream.) Also, Pokemon becomes a little more realistic with certain Pokemon appearing depending on time of day and weather conditions.
3. Speedruns will probably abuse the next Dynamax(really, Game Freak? Power Rangers much?) mechanic, turning Pokemon into glowing Kaiju. It seems like any Pokemon can gain the power of giga-growth, which means I can't wait to import Bellossom and my Mawile ribbon tuner to see how awesome they look when they go Kaiju. Of course, it's only a temporary thing because I think it would be 
4. Max Raids means interesting things are bound to happen. Four people against a Kaiju makes for some really epic battles. Still... Kaiju Clefable is still stupid-looking. :p One of the things I griped about and predicted in the death of Pokemon was that Nintendo sucks at online networks. They... still do(online is a paid service?!) but at least they learned from Pokemon GO and found a way to make online not be stupid. I'm sure they'll have their own little Festival Plaza but at least it will not require a lot of hits.
5. Gossifleur and its evolved form, Eldegoss, look like pussywillows. I am going to enjoy capturing it and Corviknight, which is fine because Scorbunny will be my starter. I hope its final evolution doesn't look like s***, but then again, Primarina made me mark Poplio over Litten. (Hey, not knocking Inceniroar, I can't wait to see that Kaiju since Smash made giant Incineroar look cool. ;}) Not so much Wooloo.
6. Some of my faves are coming back: Weavile, Clefable(not really), Braviary, etc.
7. It's nice to know how they presented it. We see four new Pokemon, we see one of these Pokemon evolve, we see a new mechanic or two, and we see how the culture of Galar is. Many people were happy Alola decided not to do something like gyms, but are going to hate the new gyms here. Me, I don't mind. I mean, Pokemon gyms are a tradition and the only reason Alola didn't do them is because Game Freak wanted to try something new. Having Ash's adventures in the Orange Islands in Sun/Moon are fine but it's nice to see gyms returns. It looks like, however, that there won't be a maze or anything - gym battles are just you and the gym leader in a really cool live-broadcast match. And it seems like Dynamaxing will be mandatory, so they may introducing the Dynamax concept before the first gym.
8. Another grass-type Gym Leader! Is the Grass type finally going to get some loving support that they desperately need! I mean, come on, Grass only has three offensive strengths and Water trumps two of those. :(
9. In the past I had to spring $80 for both versions. It seems Game Freak looted all of my old receipts because now they have a special bundle - you can pre-order a double bundle that has a copy of both versions! Definitely pre-ordering that. :D

Now what I hate:

1. "Some Pokemon can only be encountered after you defeat them in Max Raid battles." NOOO! Dammit, Game Freak, I thought you were BETTER than forcing me to play multiplayer to get 100%! X( Luckily, we can connect over the Internet but I bet it'll require the new $20 online program. OH NOES! I HAVE TO PAY A JACKSON TO PLAY POKEMON MULTI-PLAYER... FOR A FULL YEAR! (/sarcasm) I'm sorry but mandatory multiplayer sucks for me. I only hope Max Raids are the ONLY multiplayer we have to deal with.
2. We can capture Max Raid Pokemon... but chances are it'll be just like most multiplayer incidents where people steal captures and only one person gets the Pokemon. We don't know how this whole thing works but the Max capture looks really cool.
3. It might be that Dynamaxing will replace all of the old mechanics like Z-Moves and Mega Evolution, which I guess is for the best. Kaiju Pokemon get their moves powered up and do one-shots, do we REALLY need to add Mega Evolution into the mix? Even so, it would be super cool if my Ribbon Meister, YuyaSakaki the Mawile, could Mega Evolve and Dynamax. A giant two-jawed GOD (my Mawile is male) would be a craygasm. ^_^
4. No Dark/Fairy type yet announced. I really want to see one of this dual-type.

And that is about it.

Stuff to debunk:

• The legendaries are wolves - one carries a sword in mouth(figures they'd steal stuff from Bloodborne XD) and another has a mane of fur shaped like a shield. They are allies against some... common enemy we don't see. Yeah, this looks pretty neat.
• No evil team as of yet, but perhaps we can finally get away from that boring trope... NAH. 
• Sorry, looks like Hop, our rival, is going to be one of those "nice" rivals. I know a lot of people hate "nice" rivals, but I'd better that I have a rival who isn't a sore loser than someone like Blue was, a self-arrogant pri**.
• With Pokemon Home, it looks like your Let's Go Pokemon can finally become Kaiju. :)

I am eager to see where this goes. With five months and ten days ahead of us, I am eager for Thanksgiving as ever.

A Public Service Announcement to Game Freak

Dear Game Freak and Sophocles,

 

I understand you created a wonderful on-line hangout called the Festival Plaza. It was created to help fellow trainers hang out and use services that would help Pokemon out. To ensure people got plenty of Festival Coins, you created global missions where people could reach a goal in a few weeks. Logically, these goals could be met - with over 7 million Pokemon trainers, it only took one task a day to get to your challenging rewards...

PS:

Yes, I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but so far the Global Missions are hitting zero for zero. The first challenge: Have the community catch 10 million Pokemon in two weeks. Now, they had to Island Scan and capture those scanned Pokemon a million times.

So where were these 34,000 trainers that could have scanned 2 Pokemon a day(which the game so kindly let us do, scanning five Pokemon codes that gave 100 points) that were supposed to give a million scans within two weeks?!?!

I wish I was kidding. :(

This is a bad omen for Pokemon.

That's not to say people don't want to play Pokemon, but Game Freak is making a serious mistake thinking that if you Pokemon, your life is Pokemon, and you eat, sleep, drink, and s*** Pokemon.

That's not the case. There are two types of players in any video game community: Casual and Hardcore. Hardcore players get 100% or that platinum trophy on their PSN games. Casual players only finish the game story, then trade the game in for store credit at GameStop. Those who do keep the game usually replay it to exploit it for fun things like speed-runs, glitchfests and, in Pokemon's case, breeding a team that can kick Da Hacker's @$$ in VGC201X.

In my opinion, all video games which have a community are 99% Casual players. Yep, 99% of those Pokemon trainers Sophocles wants help from to develop his Festival Plaza only come to his place to beeline to GTS to trade their Yungoos for Tapus or Lunala. Nobody gives a **** about developing the place past Level 9 so they can ask people visiting to recommend Treasure Hunts to get Gold Bottle Caps from those lotteries.

Most trainers do not care about playing past the end of the story and becoming the Alola Champion. They'll be spamming Tauros Charge in tiny spaces to hatch their eggs or dumping said eggs off at the Poke Pelago with Mohn at Isle Avue and then turn off their games and go back to Call of Duty or whatever they want, coming back to hatch their eggs, stuff them in Isle Evelup for two weeks to get them to max level and force a Gold Bottle Cap on them so they can be viable for Battle Spot. :p

This is a bad omen for Pokemon. I love Pokemon Sun and Moon, I love the story... but that's all I love. I don't care about making a VGC team or getting bottle caps or even training EVs anymore. Once I stop the Ultra Beats and capture them with my in-game team at Level 80 and stuff Necrozma in a Pokeball, I'll be shutting down the game and earning platinum trophies.

Game Freak hoped that the Global Missions would make people play Pokemon more. It failed.

Pokemon will only become a zombie franchise(one that gets worse and worse over time - they haven't broken 100 new Pokemon since Unova) and eventually fade away and die at the age of 25 if Game Freak doesn't figure out how to pull people into on-line. Instead of giving up stupid coins we don't care about, how about meeting the goal of the mission gives the player some really cool stuff like a rare move or a rare Pokemon?

I hate to be a soothsayer but these Global Missions are not working. Game Freak needs to patch an update removing them and put in something else or make Festival Coins easier to obtain.

Pokemon Moon gets its first speed-run!

So... uhm...

Yeah, I haven't updated this until long after I beat Pokemon Sun. Oops. My bad. (This is actually a picture I made with Pokefinder in the game and downloaded by pulling out my 3DS's memory card and put it in my computer.)

But I know you viewers don't read this blog for information, you have Youtube for that. Instead, I wanted to share something interesting...

One of my favorite videos to watch on the WWW are speed-runs. Speed-runs are basically races to see how fast you can complete a video game. While Mario games are the most popular, I've seen speed-runs for my favorite games like Kingdom Hearts(Bizkit047 and Bl00dyBizkit, cheers!).

Pokemon speed-runs are in my Top 5, especially the glitchless any% runs. This is because Pokemon refuses to be sped through. Especially later games; they focus a LOT of the story. But the pros don't let that stop them; they break the games over their knees anyways, and I love how they do it. Check out this Pokemon Black speed run by Vulajin!

So I wasn't expecting this, considering how soon the games came out, but...

  Someone actually speed-runs Pokemon Moon!

Put up a week ago by a Youtuber called omegarevolution, who has a nice gaming channel with the usual suspects(Pokemon and Final Fantasy XV), this guy managed to rush through Pokemon Moon, one of the most story-intensive games, in a tad shy of five and a half hours. (5 hours, 30 minutes, 35 seconds) Being a typical speed-runner, he complains about RNG being the reason he didn't break 5:30, but even so, that's impressive. I decided to skim the video to find out what he did and write up a file on what I could have done(if I was interested in speed-running).

Short update

C'mon, you thought that Cosmog was a Mirage too. ^_^

So yeah, I'm not going to play the demo anymore as it has nothing for me. I have Dragon Quest Builders and World of Final Fantasy to get through before I do anything else, but a lot of new stuff was revealed, including the final starter evolutions. The Tapus are going to be the most OP Pokemon ever - Nature's Madness is a Fairy-type Super Fang(cut enemy current HP by 50%) and its Z-move, Guardian of Alola, also does fractional damage(cut enemy current HP to 25%!), making it very powerful indeed.

A whole bunch of stuff revealed! (Sun and Moon)

Yes, plz, take my money! @_@

Well, despite many's wishes and hopes, the Chinese leaked pictures were accurate - those pictures showed the forms of the final evolutions of the starters to be true.

Despite the despair of getting spoiled to all the stuff, we basically got spoiled because Game Freak forgot to remove all the data of every new Pokemon in the Alola region from the demo file and you know what they say about hackers - they're like roaches on a dead body with this stuff! :p

But the good thing is that we never found out what the types of the final forms WERE, so here are some interesting info from the newest trailer:

1. Rowlet fully evolves into an owl hunter called Decidueye, and its secondary type changes from Flying to Ghost. It has a signature ghost-type move called Spirit Shackle which works like Mean Look - once hit, the opponent is trapped and cannot switch out. I expected something like this, but if it's a damaging move, it will be really powerful - I can see a Decidueye set with Toxic, Spirit Shackle, and a grass-type move being freakin' annoying and wiping out a trainer's ghost and psychic types. :)
2. Litten's final evolution is the pro-wrestling bobcat called Inceniroar, but it's not Fire/Fighting, that's been done to death. Nope, it's Fire/DARK. Yep, move over Mega Houndoom, there's a new bad boy on the block! Especially with its signature move, Darkest Lariat, a dark-type move that ignores stat changes. So any Psychic or Ghost types trying to buff their defense - forget about it, you're done like dinner. ^_^
3. Finally, Poplio looks goofy, but after evolving twice, it becomes the seal-nosed diva mermaid called Primarina, a Water/Fairy type. Yeah, Azumarill is strong, but Primarina can heal allies with its Fairy-type signature move, Sparkling Aria, which removes the burn status on whatever it hits. Actually, I think this will be the burn-variant of Smellingsalts - it removes the condition BUT does a whopping double damage! Makes Will-O-Wisp viable. :D
4. Tapu Koko's fellow guardian Pokemon have been revealed; Tapu Koko is the guardian of Melemele Island, is Electric/Fairy, and has an ability to proc Electric Terrain when it appears. The others have similar names and effects:  Tapu Lele is the Psychic/Fairy guardian of Akala Island and has an ability that procs a new type of terrain,. Psychic Terrain. This terrain makes the Sun and Moon meta flip the bird to Quick Attack moves even MORE - all priority moves are negated while this field is active!
5. Tapu Bulu is the Grass/Fairy guardian of Ula'Ula Island and his ability procs Grassy Terrain. Finally, we have Tapu Fini, the Water/Fairy Guardian of Poni Island, which has an ability to proc the Misty Terrain.
6. All the Guardians can use a unique Z-crystal to activate the Z-move, Guardian of Alola. What it does... IT SUMMONS A FRICKING GOLEM WHICH THEY FUSE WITH TO SMASH THE F*** OUT OF A FOE! It'll be a Fairy-type move since all the Guardians have the Fairy secondary type, so the Z-Move has to share the same type as all of them.
7. There was a weird smoke-like Pokemon with smoky antenna shown before Lunala, and many expect it to be the pre-evolved form of that legendary. It was revealed to be Cosmobog(no, I mean Cosmog - sorry, had Dragon Quest VII on the brain XD) with the ability Unaware, and it's a Psychic-type Pokemon. Go figure.
8. Alolan Persian gets an official reveal - it's much uglier with a huge bulbous face. One of the interesting things we didn't get was that one of its abilities is Fur Coat, the same ability Furfrou has. Well, it makes sense - Furfrou is a pampered poodle, and Alolan Persian is a pampered fat cat. ^_^ This would be a great ability against many Fighting and Bug type Pokemon since most Fighting and Bug moves are physical in nature - it could tank a Megahorn or Hi Jump Kick.
9. We then get into post-game stuff; once you beat the final challenges of the main story, you can go to Mount Lanakila, the top of the highest mountain in Alola, and enter a "Battle Tree" competition where you not only fight, but team up with, famous faces from the other generations - yes, Champion Cynthia returns as does Wally from OR/AS... and we also get a surprise; Red and Blue, the trainers from the classic games, make a return, and Red is as silent as always. :p

This is looking to be a cool generation, folks, and now I am off to build my teams. ;)

I've got good news and I've got bad news, which do you wanna hear first?

After reading an interview with Shigeru Ohmori, one of the people working on Pokemon Sun and Moon, I gleaned a few new things that will upset a lot of people, including myself, but I got over it:

Mega Evolution is confined to the post-game:

"We really wanted to have people kind of get used to this new idea, this new strategic element. So over the course of the main scenario of the main game, Mega Evolutions don't appear. But once you finish the story, you unlock the access to Mega Evolve Pokémon. You run through the main game learning about these new Z moves, and after the game you unlock more strategic depth by combining Z move with mega-evolve Pokémon."

 What a lot of hardcore fans of a game franchise hate is the post-game: It's basically stuff that's the aftermath of the story and some things are not available until that aftermath section, once all of the main story is over and done with. Disgaea D2 is furiously notorious for this, giving you playable characters from other games in the franchise like Emizel and Raspberyl.

And it looks like Pokemon's 6th gen mechanic, Mega Evolution, is being restricted to the post-game because this game's mechanic are the Z-Moves.

IMHO, I have no idea WHY fans hate this. The 6th gen games did not let you have the Key Stone right away. Even X/Y barred you from the Key Stone and Mega Evolution until you beat Korrina in the Tower of Mastery, which was after the third gym battle, and even then you only had access to Lucarionite and Mega Lucario and the Starterite of your Kanto starter you chose at Lumiose City.

Mega Evolutions are powerful but I only used one in my entire play of Omega Ruby (because Mega Mawile is awesome) and I didn't even use one in Pokemon Y. The Z-Moves I might use more often but I don't intend to harp on them much.

Confirmed: There are no Alolan Pokemon changes past the original 149.

"long-time fans of the game that have played since the beginning, and I really wanted to have a special surprise for those players. Also for the fact that Pokémon from the Kanto region of the original game are probably the most recognizable among long-time fans. So I really wanted to kind of focus on them and give them kind of them a new take on their appearance to really surprise them. But at the same time, by having the new appearance they kind of look like new Pokémon for a lot of new players who are maybe just getting started with Pokémon. So that was the reason we decided to focus on Kanto Pokémon."

It's straight from the Mudsdale's mouth, folks: Any future Alolan Pokemon will be strictly derived from the 149 Pokemon of the original Chromatic classics. There will be no Alolan forms of Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova or Kalos Pokemon!!!

Again, a lot of fans will hate this because it'll be "Oh, the creators are Genwunners!!! X(" I admit I was born long before Nintendo was a video game company and had long since graduated from high school before the original Pokemon games came out, and I got hooked on the games after seeing Ash battle Brock in his gym in the anime, but after playing the original games, I enjoyed them.

But I am not a Genwunner. In fact, I didn't like 90% of the classic 149. The only Pokemon I liked were Starmie, Ninetales, Kangashkan and Vileplume. However, I am with the creators on restricting the Alolan forms to a certain number of one generation.

Technically, it's good: Even if you didn't given Alolan forms to Legendary Pokemon (that would make them Overpowered), the starters(why do this?) or Pokemon who have Mega Evolutions(the Mega Evolutions won't mesh with Alolan Forms), you still have over 650 Pokemon to work with. That is impossible without making the Nintendo Switch have the memory of a super-computer. Sadly, you have to accept that most of the Pokemon are never getting Alolan Forms.

So why not have a few Alolan forms from each generation? While I support the "melting pot" thesis(after all America and Hawaii in general are melting pots of culture and ecology), it would be hard to determine what Pokemon would work in which generation.By focusing on one generation alone, they can work with what they know.

Finally, the nostalgia factor. Yes, I am supporting the classic games here, but I am not a Genwunner. I'll get into a discussion in a later post. If Gnoggin's to be believed and the Pokemon Company's next Pokemon game, the one they will develop for the Nintendo Switch, is a Ratchet and Clank PS4 reboot of the entire franchise, which generation will they start off reworking in glorious 4K?

Yep, the original 151 of the Kanto Region. This is because Red/Blue/Green are the original O.G, in the immortal words of Zenmaster Blue. ;) Long fans of the series usually began their Pokemon careers training Butterfree or Pikachu in Viridian Forest, so it makes sense that this first wave of critters is the one most will connect with. While I love Mawile, Ralts, Lucario and Goomi, my first Pokemon love was Butterfree.

Now for the Good News: Nintendo's next console is not a console per se, but a dock for a handheld game system called the Nintendo Switch. In other words, you usually play it like a 3DS, but you can insert the device in a socket which is connected to your TV and you can connect a special controller or attach the button/joystick to a grip and play it like a Wii U console. They are going to develop Pokemon games for this device, which I hope I'll be able to afford in March 2017, when it comes out.